Leadership effectiveness is alignment of your three minds the Gut brain, Heart brain, and Head brain. They perform different thinking task. Current research has upended the notion that we have in our heads a single powerful mind that is home to our thoughts, emotions, and reactions. In fact, science now tells us that we have not one, but three centers of thought and memory! Each one perceives, interprets, and reacts to the world in a distinctly different way. In addition to our well-known “thinking” brain (which we will call the “Head Brain”), we have a “feeling” brain (which we will call our “Heart Brain”) and a third brain —at our core— whose job it is to keep us safe. We will call this “self-preservation” brain the “Gut Brain”.  Sneijders, Christoffel. How Men and Women Fit, Finally Understand Your Partner with the 3 Brains Theory, PEAL Academy. Kindle Edition.

 Ancient Chinese Taoist philosophy maintains there are three minds, intelligences or energy centers within the body known as the Three Tan Tiens. The Upper Tan Tien is located within the head brain, the Middle Tan Tien is located in the heart and the Lower Tan Tien in the abdomen. The Enneagram on the other hand is a mystical system based in part on a synthesis of ancient Sufi wisdom. It describes how we prevent our spiritual growth via ego fixations derived from three centers: head, heart, and gut. The notion that we have three souls or intelligences also features in a huge cross-section of the world’s religions. It can be found in Kahuna the native Hawaiian occult tradition as a notion of a ‘lower self’, a ‘middle self’ and a ‘higher self’. Jewish Kabbalah similarly has a spiritual conception with three distinct levels of soul. The shamans of Mongolia, Mongolia, Siberia and Central Asia say that all humans possess three souls, the ‘sold’ soul, the ‘suns’ soul and the ‘ami’ body soul. In addition, many tribal peoples such as the Nupe in Africa, the Native American Lakota Sioux, the Inuit Eskimos, the indigenous Taiwanese Puyuma, and the Hmong Chinese aborigines all claim that humans have three souls. In a review of the last 100 years of ethnographic data, researchers Frecska, Moro and Wesselman found that a tripartite concept of soul was the rule rather than the exception in aboriginal spiritual traditions. And when you think about it, wouldn’t the notion of a ‘soul’ be a primitive way of making sense of and expressing the concept of an intelligence operating within us? Soosalu, Grant; Oka, Marvin. mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff. TimeBinding Publications. Kindle Edition.

 The Gut Brain oversees our survival. It is our most primitive brain. It is home of our survival instinct. The prime function of the gut brain is to keep you safe and provide for physical needs.  Gut Brains want to escape fear, pain, and hunger. They seek safety and the satisfaction of physical desires. When you (or any other person or creature) feel endangered, the Gut Brain takes the reins. Gut Brains don’t think in shades of gray. To them, survival is a black-and-white concept. Our Gut Brain decides whether we want to react to something or someone —be it to fight, flee, surrender, eat, or mate with. It controls our “gut reaction” to whether a situation or person is safe or a threat. The simple notion of agreeing or disagreeing with something is a Gut Brain task. In small, non-emergency decisions, our Gut Brains consult the Head Brain to weigh in with its judgment. Before it does, the Gut Brain has made its own decision. The Gut Brain can turn off the other parts of your Brain if it thinks they are getting in the way. The gut brain is driven by feelings like hunger, fear, desire, disgust, anger, rage. Your gut brain when making decisions focuses communications and behaviors on these feelings. It is always focused on you. The gut brain only thinks about here and now.

The Head Brain It is the most recently evolved of the three Brains (around two million years ago).  Anatomists call it the neocortex —and it contains the structures that process language and abstract ideas. As the newcomer, it is constantly chattering about what it sees— the future, re-evaluations of the past, the logic of our life and surrounding —while persuading the other Brains to see the world as it does. It can make powerful arguments (that’s why it evolved). However, the Gut and the Heart did fine without it for millions of years, so they are inclined to ignore it when they disagree or think its contributions irrelevant. Even so, the Head Brain is a powerful and persuasive cognitive engine. It is the finest learning and data-processing tool nature has ever produced. It can, at times, push the Heart Brain’s priorities to the side and even, in more limited ways, persuade the Gut Brain to temper its reactions. But neither the Heart nor Gut Brains are so foolish as to let the Head, for all that cerebral horsepower, take charge. To communicate to the Gut, the Head Brain must use the language the Gut understands: emotions and feelings such as fear, anger, pain, need, desire. the Heart Brain is only inclined to listen to the Head Brain when it’s on the fence about something and has no emotions invested. When it’s certain about something —when its emotions are committed, it has no time for the Head Brain’s nattering. The Head Brain knows how little influence it has on the Heart Brain. So, when it is convinced the Heart Brain is making a mistake, it tries to enlist the Gut Brain to agree with it. If it does, the Heart might protest, but the Gut Brain can throw up roadblocks to the Heart Brain’s reactions.

 The Heart Brain focuses on emotions. love, compassions, generosity, hate. The heart is the seat of love, desires, goals, dreams, and values. The heart brain is anything we feel for or about others it flows form the heart. The heart brain is known as the limbic brain. Its strength is loving, caring and courage. Heart brains domain is our emotions. Every form of affection, and interpersonal connection stem from the heat brain.  The heart brain compels us to reach out and build connection. The heart brain may shape and guide or even limit the gut brain responses. An example of the heart brain can be shown by the parental protection expressed in unsafe situations. Don’t mess with the mama bear. Neither Heart nor Head, in fact, can ever convince the Gut Brain to completely set aside its hard-wired programming. Heart Brains believe in sharing and fairness. They believe the world is just, and that the love and care you give to others will always be reciprocated. imagine, Heart Brains are open to manipulation and exploitation. Only a healthy and vigilant Gut Brain can keep a Heart Brain from getting into real trouble. On the other hand, wounded Heart Brains become outraged, all the more so because they never see the hurt coming. Discovering that it has been manipulated or betrayed is humiliating for the Heart Brain. And humiliation provokes hate and activates Gut Brain rage. A wounded, enraged Heart Brain could seek to hurt in return, because only then will its need for justice be satisfied. Just as a generous Heart Brain can persuade the Gut Brain to include others into its sense of “self”, a wounded Heart Brain can infect the Gut Brain with malice and vindictiveness.  Your Head Brain is relentlessly seeking to understand how the world works. It looks for patterns, so it can make predictions. It generalizes, evaluates, and interprets information that is coming in. When it does, its owner can use that knowledge to better survive and prosper. But a Head Brain can only work with the information it gets. Adapted and taken from:  Sneijders, Christoffel. How Men and Women Fit, Finally Understand Your Partner with the 3 Brains Theory.  PEAL Academy. Kindle Edition.

 Now I have heard that leadership is a matter of the heart. Given the current research I propose we think about leadership as a matter of the integration of your three brains. Yet I propose successful leadership derive from the heart brain’s character/ quality which dictates our leadership point of view. That essence of quality is your experiences you have saved as good leadership.

If we look to the spiritual traditions, we see ancient sage wisdom aligns with leadership is a matter of the heart. “And wanting what’s precious you do what distorts your being. The sage knows this in his gut and is guided by his instinct and not by what his eyes want.” Tao Te Ching-   “Knowledge coupled with a warm heart brings wisdom.” Dalai Lama- “The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.” Buddha- “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle- “That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.” Rumi- “The body is the instrument of the mind... The mind is an instrument of the heart.” Hazrat Inayat Khan.

The gut brain first gets involved initially with answering; will the leadership role lead to a better chance of survival? To be sure people desire the leadership role to be in control, to make a significant difference in their lives. You must desire the leadership role like a child who first taste chocolate.  You first reaction when tasting chocolate; more! You need to desire the leadership role. That drive is gut brain thinking.  If you want the leadership role merely to improve your chance of survivability you will not be a successful leader. Survivability leaders are often called aloof, arrogant, uncaring, cold, and focused on only short-term earnings.  Who wants to follow someone only interested in maximizing profit over people? In today’s executive world the Faustian deal has been made with the top five members of management. Incentives, stock options and earnings short circuit the heart brain for survivability.

The Heart brain is the heart of the matter when it comes to leadership. The heart brains prime functions are love, emoting, salience, affection, moral rightness as compared to rule based ethics,  connection,  compassion, generosity, desires, goals, dreams, and values.  The heart brain yearns connection as a prime competence. Building connection with others is a prime directive for effective leadership. In my experience the quality of a leader is measured by how much they care about others in their organization. Caring is another heart brain prime  function. When I have coached on leadership development I start with character and values. Values exploration with clients is a very powerful exercise to get the client in touch with what really matters to them. Values can be the energy behind the doing. When you craft a vision, you tap into the heart brain functions of desire, dreams. A compelling desired future built on shared meaning( connection) pulls people toward the noble purpose versus being pushed to a vision. Also, to bring something to life that is new requires courage. Another heart brain function. A quality heart brain redirect- do you desire the leadership role to help others thrive and flourish? The nuance here is serving others first to serve the stockholders second. These are some examples of why the heart brain is the seat and essence of a leader.  Leadership is a matter of the heart.